# Episode 2 — Why Bother Messing With Her? I Don’t Want to Get Stabbed
It was the third day.
The third day in this body. There were still things that felt awkward.
Every time he looked in the mirror, he needed half a second. The amount of hair he gathered in his hands when washing his face. The way he got up every time he woke, because his center of gravity was different. When he stretched out an arm, slender, long fingers emerged from the end of his sleeve. They were completely different from the hands he had used for thirty-seven years.
‘I’m Isabel again today.’
Once he’d confirmed that, it was enough. No commute, no overtime, no calls from the department head. His quality of life had improved.
---
Magic practice on a sunny day like this? This was just time to appreciate the sunlight.
Blue sky. Cool breeze. Green grass.
‘Nice. I just want to stand here.’
The wind blew. All his silver hair spilled forward. It covered his face. He swept it back with one hand, but the moment he tucked it behind his ear, it slipped down again. He could distinctly feel the weight of his hair shifting from his shoulders to the front. Even after three days, the heaviness of that silver hair fluttering beside his neck and spilling over his collarbone was still unfamiliar.
He sat on the stone ledge by the training ground. The moment he sat, his skirt rode up. His thighs touched the stone surface directly. It was cold. That coldness concentrated on the skin of his inner thighs. The hem of his skirt spread to either side. Sitting there, Minjun looked down to check how far the skirt had risen. Above the knees. Somewhere around mid-thigh. The wind blew. The hem fluttered. That movement briefly raised the upper boundary along his thighs a little higher before letting it fall again.
‘This is every day. This.’
‘I miss pants.’
The jacket bothered him too. When he sat and leaned forward a little, the front of the jacket changed. Following the tilt of his body, the collar parted slightly. For a moment, there was an angle where the inside almost showed, then it returned when he straightened. Even after three days, he still hadn’t completely grasped the way Isabel’s body worked.
He placed the crystal orb on his palm.
---
Just then, Laura whispered.
“Lady Isabel. Miss Armand is about to receive her practice assignment. According to precedent……”
Minjun glanced toward the training ground.
A blonde bob. Clear green eyes.
It was Chloe Armand. She stood quietly, looking at the practice assignment board. A slender neckline showed above the collar of her uniform. When she lowered her head slightly, it looked even longer. Her shoulders were narrow and neat. She held the crystal orb in both hands, her gaze lowered.
And the morning sunlight had settled over Chloe’s uniform. Chloe leaned forward slightly to examine the crystal orb. At that moment, the front of her uniform jacket changed. As she leaned, the jacket was pulled along with her, and the line of the front shifted to match her bent posture. The collar parted slightly, revealing the area below her neckline for an instant, then returned when Chloe straightened again. Minjun’s field of vision processed that fleeting moment of appearing and disappearing.
Minjun looked straight ahead.
‘……My thirty-seven-year-old male brain analyzed that again.’
‘A female body with a male brain. HR training never covered this kind of case.’
Judgment reserved.
Then Chloe’s eyes lifted. Her gaze turned this way. Their eyes met.
Chloe immediately lowered her gaze.
Her shoulders rose slightly. As they rose, her neckline shortened. Strength entered the tips of the fingers holding the crystal orb. The shoulder seams of her uniform jacket pulled taut, then softened again as she exhaled. That loosening traveled down from her shoulders toward her chest, making the entire front of her jacket move gently with her breath. It tightened when she inhaled and loosened when she exhaled.
‘She gets nervous the moment she sees me.’
---
He turned and walked to the western corner of the training ground. It was a sunny spot with no one around.
He placed the crystal orb on his palm. When he put a little strength into his hand, red light spread inside the orb. Isabel’s body seemed to know it instinctively.
‘Ooh.’
He turned the red light on and off. That was all he repeated. When it lit up, the light leaked between his fingers and warmly illuminated the back of his hand. As that light spread over the thin skin on the inside of his wrist, the position of his veins showed faintly.
The back of his neck prickled.
‘Again.’
Someone had watched him yesterday. Someone was watching him today too. He didn’t look back. Sensing the direction and distance of someone’s gaze was the kind of thing twelve years of office life had engraved into his body.
But this gaze was different. A department head’s gaze was unpleasant. This was—
‘Not unpleasant.’
That made it even stranger. It was a kind of gaze he had never known in thirty-seven years. Minjun still didn’t know the name for this sensation, neither pulling him in nor pushing him away.
---
Meanwhile, to the east.
Chloe stood at her assigned spot and looked toward the western corner again.
Isabel was sitting alone, the crystal orb resting in her hand.
In that seated posture, her skirt had ridden up. She was perched on the stone ledge. Her thighs were visible beneath the skirt. Sunlight rested upon them. It was a different angle from when she walked. When she sat, the hem spread to either side, revealing the outer line of her thighs. The way it touched made Chloe’s gaze stop there.
The wind blew. Silver hair swayed. A snow-white neckline was revealed. Sunlight pooled over her collarbone, then flowed away.
Isabel lit the crystal orb in her hand. Red light seeped between her fingers and dyed her wrist. Her fingers were long. Her wrist was slender. When she lit the orb, the front of her jacket moved faintly with her breathing. Tightening when she inhaled, returning when she exhaled—that rhythm. Chloe watched it from beginning to end. She recognized that she was watching. Even after recognizing it, she could not withdraw her gaze.
The wind blew again. The hem of the skirt moved. In the moment it clung, the inner line became clearer. When it fell away, it vanished; when the wind blew, it clung again. Chloe watched it. When the wind stopped, Chloe realized she was waiting for it to blow again. Realizing that, she tightened her grip on the crystal orb.
“Miss Armand, have you confirmed your assignment?”
Only at the professor’s voice did she manage to tear her gaze away. Her fingertips were cold.
---
Practice ended.
Isabel left her seat. Her silver hair swayed behind her as she moved farther away. With each step, there was a rhythm to the way the hem of her skirt clung to her thighs and fell away. It was a rhythm created by the act of walking itself. The instant the skirt clung, the inner line briefly appeared. When it fell away, it vanished, then clung again with the next step. That repetition grew smaller as she receded into the distance. Chloe stood there until that back view disappeared completely.
The way Isabel’s uniform jacket narrowed at the waist. The way her waistline changed minutely as she walked. Chloe saw that too.
Chloe stood still, watching that retreating figure.
---
“Lady Isabel. Why did you leave her alone today?”
As Minjun walked down the corridor, he answered briefly.
“It’s a hassle. What do I gain from messing with that girl? There’s no benefit, only loss.”
‘Basic workplace survival. Don’t make enemies for no reason.’
“If you tell me to mess with her next time, you explain the reason first.”
Laura’s footsteps stopped for a moment.
Sunlight came through the corridor windows. It was warm. The hem of his skirt swayed with each step. Even after three days, this sensation was unfamiliar. Whenever he walked, the hem clung to his thighs and fell away. Even in a corridor with no wind, that rhythm existed. It was created by his steps themselves. Isabel’s gait and this skirt moved together like this every day. A sensation that had never existed in thirty-seven years was here.
---
Minjun stood before the mirror in his dorm room. He was still wearing his uniform. The day was over.
He looked at Isabel in the mirror. The uniform was fitted at the waist. The line of the jacket narrowing at the waist. The skirt continuing below it.
‘This is my body.’
Even now, that sentence had not been fully processed.
---
That night.
By the dormitory window, Chloe replayed the training ground in her mind.
Isabel had been perched on the stone ledge. She had been alone, the crystal orb resting on her palm. Her skirt had ridden up. Isabel hadn’t paid any attention to it. She had simply been turning the light in the crystal orb on and off. That indifference lingered in Chloe’s memory even longer.
The way the hem of the skirt clung and fell away whenever the wind blew. The way the line of her inner thigh appeared and vanished in the moment it clung. Chloe had watched that repetition the entire time the wind blew. When the wind stopped, she realized she was hoping it would blow again.
Chloe did not acknowledge that fact. Without acknowledging it, she sat by the window.
The way Isabel had sat beneath the sunlight. The line revealed when her skirt rode up. The part touching the stone surface. Light had settled over her legs.
And the way the front of her jacket tightened whenever she inhaled. Its shape changed between each inhale and exhale. Chloe did not acknowledge that she had watched it from beginning to end.
The way the hem of the skirt swayed when the wind blew, changing that boundary. Chloe had watched that too, from beginning to end. Every time the wind stopped, she had waited for it to blow again. Without acknowledging that fact, there were too many things she had not acknowledged.
The shape of the sunlight pooling over Isabel’s collarbone too. The repeated hiding and revealing of that collarbone whenever her silver hair swayed in the wind too.
She bit her lip lightly. Her fingertips gripped the end of her own sleeve, then let go. Outside the window, moonlight spread over the grass.
‘Will she be like that next time too?’
And immediately, she realized it.
Right now, she was waiting for Isabel.
By the window, with that light and those remembered lines placed upon her heart, Chloe did not think of it as a problem.
Not yet.